Nor is the man of Imperfect Self-Control like the man who both has and
calls into exercise his knowledge, but like the man who, having it, is
overpowered by sleep or wine. Again, he acts voluntarily (because he
knows, in a certain sense, what he does and the result of it), but he
is not a confirmed bad man, for his moral choice is good, so he is at
all events only half bad. Nor is he unjust, because he does not act
with deliberate intent: for of the two chief forms of the character,
the one is not apt to abide by his deliberate resolutions, and the
other, the man of constitutional strength of passion, is not apt to
deliberate at all.
So in fact the man of Imperfect Self-Control is like a community which
makes all proper enactments, and has admirable laws, only does not act
on them, verifying the scoff of Anaxandrides,
“That State did will it, which cares nought for laws;”
whereas the bad man is like one which acts upon its laws, but then
unfortunately they are bad ones.
Imperfection of Self-Control and Self-Control, after all, are above the
average state of men; because he of the latter character is more true
to his Reason, and the former less so, than is in the power of most
men.
Again, of the two forms of Imperfect Self-Control that is more easily
cured which they have who are constitutionally of strong passions, than
that of those who form resolutions and break them; and they that are so
through habituation than they that are so naturally; since of course
custom is easier to change than nature, because the very resemblance of
custom to nature is what constitutes the difficulty of changing it; as
Evenus says,
“Practice, I say, my friend, doth long endure,
And at the last is even very nature.”
We have now said then what Self-Control is, what Imperfection of
Self-Control, what Endurance, and what Softness, and how these states
are mutually related.
APPENDIX.
Book VII. Chapters 12 to 15. (Bekker.)
To consider the subject of Pleasure and Pain falls within the province
of the Social-Science Philosopher, since he it is who has to fix the
Master-End which is to guide us in dominating any object absolutely
evil or good.
But we may say more: an enquiry into their nature is absolutely
necessary. First, because we maintained that Moral Virtue and Moral
Vice are both concerned with Pains and Pleasures: next, because the
greater part of mankind assert that Happiness must include Pleasure
(which by the way accounts for the word they use, μακάριος; χαίρειν
being the root of that word).
Now some hold that no one Pleasure is good, either in itself or as a
matter of result, because Good and Pleasure are not identical. Others
that some Pleasures are good but the greater number bad. There is yet a
third view; granting that every Pleasure is good, still the Chief Good
cannot possibly be Pleasure.
In support of the first opinion (that Pleasure is utterly not-good) it
is urged that: